Ramadan soap operas slammed for promoting smoking

CAIRO – 12 June 2017: The Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction (FDCTA) affiliated to the Ministry of Social Solidity issued a complain, Monday to the consumer protection agency for promoting Tobacco companies products inside TV series aired during Ramadan.

Amr Osman, FDCTA head, said in his complain that according to the Egyptian law, it is prohibited to promote cigarettes, or any other Tobacco products, whether it was featured soap operas, Magazines or newspapers.

‘A CD contains samples to the scenes that promotes Tobacco products was attached with complain to consumer protection agency,’ Osman said in statements Monday.

On June 7, FDCTA issued another statement regarding Ramadan soap operas, saying that they have observed 595 scenes of smoking and using drugs in TV series aired during the first week in Ramadan.

A black list of series including these types of scenes was created by FDCTA, as “Al-Herbaya,” and “Ramadan Kareem” came on the top of it.

Anti-drug videos featuring young soccer star Mohamed Salah was lunched with the begging of this, as part of ‘you are stronger than drugs.’ These videos mark Salah’s second appearance in the campaign, as his first was in a TV ad titled ‘say no to anything stops you’ April 2016.